Kensopia - Contest Entry
by OrangePeels4You
Summary: Perhaps in another world, in another time they could have loved each other. Probably worse than it sounds. Theme: Zombie Apocalypse - Host/s: Naruto Fanclub - Word Limit: 4000


**Oneshot Entry**

* * *

Sakura stumbles across him lying on the ground unconscious, surprised he wasn't just another corpse dead from the apocalypse. After the initial shock wore off, she approaches the man.

Her gaze sweeps over him, examining his features, and concluding- He is a rather handsome person. His hair was a pitch black disaster, with split ends and two long strands of hair that fell at the side of his head. His body was of a lean muscular form and his skin was a ghostly-pale colour. His lips were a pale red colour, parched and dry from dehydration, he is sweating, and he doesn't move at all. He looks around the age of eighteen, the same age as her. There was a cold and dark aura that was coming from him, but that didn't intimidate Sakura as she approaches the only person she has seen in months.

As she cautiously comes closer to the man, she puts her middle finger and pointer finger together and puts it on his wrist to feel for a pulse. His heart is beating quite faintly, and that scares her. She doesn't know why his heart is beating so faintly, whether it be the lack of oxygen or something else. As she examines the man more, she moves her hand over to his hand and squeezes it as if she was reassuring him. His hands are icy cold when she grips his hand.

She doesn't flinch but finds the lack of warmth radiating from his body worrying. As she looks up and he examines her surroundings to make sure no one would be coming back, she lets out a puff of air. She doesn't know what to do- but she is Sakura, and Sakura is a rather naive girl, unaware of threats or dangers, with bright green innocent eyes.

Sakura doesn't know the man, nor does she know why he was out there, she doesn't really know anything about him, but no matter how little she knew, she knew that he would not survive through the night with the current zombie apocalypse.

So, even though she is tired and rather beaten, she heaves his unconscious body over her shoulder. He is heavy, and weighs her down, and at one part where she carries him along the barren streets, she comes across a small pile of broken glass shards causing her to stumble. However, Sakura refuses to drop him or risk injuring him, she tells herself the reason for that is because he's already rather hurt and injuring him would be bad, but she knows that it's mainly just the small part of her is begging for companionship that's telling her not to drop the man, because injuring him more could be fatal. After thinking over everything, she decides to bring him to the abandon shopping mall to hide, where there are supplies and big open space.

The entire way to the worn down mall, she feels his faint heart beat against her back, and she finds it soothing in a way. The gentle and repetitive tap beating against her back, as if it were trying to comfort her, to tell her 'you'll be okay'. As soon as she enters the mall and gets out of the cold, she finds a bench to lay him down on. Shrugging off her pink jacket, she drapes it over the man's body. She then rests her back against the bench's leg. Her bright vibrant green eyes watching his chest rise and fall. Closing her eyes, she lets the melodic jingle of the jacket zipper bring her to sleep.

The night passes quickly.

When the man wakes up the following morning, she sees his eyes for the very first time, and Sakura finds herself drowning in a dark void of black. Beautiful, pitch black orbs, so gentle and yet shrouded in rage and anguish. They seemed so mysterious and yet so painfully blunt, so hateful yet glazed over with honey. His eyes were something of another world, contradicting itself at every turn. Sakura knows she is shallow, but she can't help but to fall in love at the sight of the bloodshot yet beautiful eyes.

The man then gets up, pushing the pink jacket to the side and swinging his legs over the edge of the bench. He runs his hand through his messy hair and massages his temples to chase away the pain in his head before he looks at Sakura. His smouldering gaze causes her to let out a timid squeak. "Hello." He says in a deep and smooth voice. "Did you bring me here?" The girl nods quickly, her face turning a bright shade of red. "Thank you."

* * *

As time passes, Sakura begins to learn more about the man who is called Sasuke Uchiha. She learns about his weaknesses and his strengths. She learns about his favourite colours and activities along with his least. She learns what he strives to become, what he dreams of, what he desires. She likes to think he lets her in more than anyone else he's met, but she knows that this is most likely wrong, because at night, she hears him whisper names in a slurred speech. The most prominent one that kept reoccurring was the name, 'Naruto'.

She has asked him once about the name, and he growled at her, saying the words, "None of your business." Sakura was hurt, yes, but she saw the flash of pain on his face and decided it was a touchy topic, and if he was ready he would tell her about it.

They have spent much time together, and she already realizes within the first month that he is not a cold man but a vulnerable child. Even though he insults her often, using words like weak and annoying, she sees that he is on the edge of shattering. He is breaking on the inside, and she doesn't know why but she can't stop loving him, perhaps it was the fact he isn't your stereotypical movie hero, with good looks and charm, no, he is a wounded boy who is holding something back.

* * *

Sakura awakes this cold frosty morning and gets out of bed. She approaches the window at the end of the mall and she presses her hands against the cold glass leaving behind a foggy, slightly opaque, imprint of her palms and fingers on the stained window with flecks of grime scattered on the glass. Today, she notes, the sky was a sombre gray, filled with dark clouds. Small raindrops fall from the clouds, pelting the building and the surroundings. She has a feeling something is going to go wrong, but she doesn't think much of it as she slips away to meet Sasuke whom has already gotten up quite awhile ago.

"Sasuke-kun!" She shouts cheerfully as she approaches the man with a smile. "How are you doing?" She asks him as she reaches his side. He looks down at her with annoyed eyes but answers her question, "Fine." He replies with a indifferent look before he looks up again and stares straight ahead. She smiles, "That's good. Are you going to be going out today?" The boy looks down at her irritably, "Sakura. Yes. I always do."

She asks him the same thing every day, it was predictable and constant, but it was comfortable, the lack of change was comfortable. He too, stayed in familiar territory. He left the building in broad daylight at around 10:00 AM, and he comes back at around 5:00 PM. It was a routine, and even if she doesn't know where he went, or what he did (even though she has tried to ask), she trusts him that he'll come back every day. Except today.

Because when he leaves today, he brings his bag- he has never done that before, and it's out of the norm- it was abnormal. She has a bad feeling when he walks out the door, bidding her a half-hearted farewell. As her eyes follow him from behind the window, watching as he walks out of her view, she tries to reassure herself that everything is alright.

She spends the entire day with an uneasy feeling, attempting to tell herself that he will follow the unspoken routine. But, when the sun begins to set and the day fades into a starless night, and it passes five, she is beyond worried. She fears that perhaps her only company since all everyone died would leave her. She pulls on her thin pink jacket that now was in tatters and tears, grabbing a small lantern; she walks out the large door to the mall with a hopeful expression.

The night was chilly and smelt of death. The barren streets and the haunting silence scares her but she goes on, because she doesn't want to lose another person. The city was illuminated by the single light source she held up, the city lights long since broken.

As she walks down the cobblestone path, she can hear faint footsteps and she goes frigid. She knows the footsteps are not ones of zombies because they are too light, too soft. They are the footsteps of a person.

A shiver goes down her spine as the smooth voice she has gotten use to breaks the silence. "Sakura, it's the middle of the night- What are you hanging around here for?" His rough voice causes her to shake with shock but she does not move as the footsteps grow closer. "You should go to bed." He is finally approaching, and she feels slight relief knowing that he is safe. Then he swerves around her and her eyes widen in shock. "Why... Why Sasuke-kun?" She whispers, her heart racing as she realizes that he will not be coming back with her. He provides no answer. The silence was overwhelming and the tension in the air was thick, suffocating them. "Do you... Do you remember when I brought you to the mall? Do you remember when you saved me from the zombies when I was out looking for supplies? You... You saved me and I felt like nothing could go wrong..."

He stopped for a moment as if he was contemplating what to say. Then, he says the words that shatter her. "I don't remember." Her eyes widen and she blinks, her lip trembles as she looks at his back again. "Sasuke-kun... What did you do while you were away every day?" She questioned quietly as to chase away the silence.

"I was... Visiting a teacher. He will help me reach my goal." He replies, and Sakura breaks a little more on the inside. The tears that brimmed in her green eyes fell. "Sasuke-kun, I love you so much! Please, I beg of you, please don't walk away!" She pleaded; her face glistened in the moonlight as the tears slid down and fell, shattering as it made contact with the ground. "If you stay you can help me understand- I'll do anything. Please... Don't leave me alone." She begs, she can see his shoulders square and she walks up behind him. She moves forward and grips the hand at his side, "Sasuke-kun, Please stay. I love you..."

His shoulders then relax, and he shakes her hand off of his hand. He turns around and he looks Sakura straight in the eye. He smirks and Sakura's smile falters, "You're so damned annoying."

She gasps in shock as he begins to walk away. His silhouette fades away into the shadows as he whispers his final words to her thinking she couldn't hear, "Thank you." She is left standing on the paved ground, with tears flowing from her now puffy eyes and down her rosy cheeks. The green orbs shone with betrayal and hurt, but she tells herself it'll all be okay, because she has a gut feeling, and she is naive. The rain continues to fall and pelt the pink haired girl standing alone on the sidewalk.

And so, she waits for him. She knows, he will come back, because he always does.

* * *

When she sees Sasuke again, three years have passed. The world was growing more desperate and people were losing hope. She is one of those people too. She is dulled, her skin was no longer a rosy peach colour but pale white and dusted with a gray tinge. Her body is lanky and skinny, still having a little stomach fat but missing the plumpness to her she had three years ago. The glow she once had was missing, replaced by a depressing gray. Her eyes are no longer green pools of innocence, but they aren't tainted with anguish and death either. No, her eyes are just empty.

When she sees Sasuke again, he is lying on the ground, unconscious. She looks at him warily from an distance as she approaches the body. When she is a little less than ten meters away, she recognizes his spiked hair and she smiles faintly. This situation was a bit too nostalgic. As soon as she reached the man, she noticed his hands are stained with blood and there is a deep gash, a bite mark maybe, on his shoulder. The sight worries her but she covers up the fear with a stoic mask. She goes to the man with her arms outstretched, ready to carry him, to bring him back to the mall that she had first brought him to so long ago.

Then she hesitates, she remembers when he left her all alone for three years, with no one. She remembers all hopes she had, and all the unfulfilled wishes, but most of all- she remembers the loneliness. She thinks for only a second, that she has spent too much on the kid. But, she is Sakura, and Sakura is a naive girl. So she heaves the boy she loves oh so dearly onto her back, and she hauls him to the mall again and leaves him on a bench before she walks away to the glass window and stares at the sky, her head bent upwards as to search for the stars.

She is doing this for so long that she doesn't realize what time it is, not until she hear a quiet groan and she realizes he has woken up.

He awakes in the break of dawn. The sky is a scarlet red with smudges of orange and yellow. The sun crawls slowly up the sky as she looks at him. His eyes are bloodshot, and black circles were under his eyes.

The beautiful eyes she once loved were now an empty void. They were no longer contradicting eyes but pitch black voids of nothing. No shine, no gentleness. No emotion. And it scared her, because the fire that once lived in his eyes was gone, replaced by indifference.

As he crawls up from the bench, he rubs his head and then he looks at the pink-haired girl staring at him with calculating eyes. He stares back with the same eyes and speaks after a minute of silence. "Hello, Sakura."

She smiles faintly, "Welcome home, Sasuke."

He finds the lack of 'kun' after his name strange in a sense.

Getting up, he pushes himself off of the bench only to stumble and for the girl to grab hold of his arm. "Sasuke, sit back down. You're injured." She states bluntly, her eyes flash as he looks up at her with narrowed eyes.

"Sasuke, I'm only trying to help. I've only ever tried to help." She tries her best at monotone, to combat his coldness with her own, but still, the voice thickened with indifference cracks and hurt leaks through for a mere second before she regains her composure.

He begrudgingly nods before slowly and cautiously sits onto the bench again, letting the silence comfort them.

He sits there, staring at her intently- almost as if he was judging her, as if he was making an internal plan. She is awkwardly pacing around the room, grabbing supplies and pulling out two cups of instant ramen. Walking over to Sasuke with a slight apologetic look on her face, she hands him one in which he frowns but still takes it.

"Here. Have one, I don't have any hot water. I only have a little fuel left for the boiler and I want to conserve it." She says in the most stoic voice she can manage. However, he only shrugs at her words and then goes back to brooding on the bench.

She inwardly sighs and ignores his attitude as she grabs the cold water and slowly pours it into the cup. The water made the noodles soggy and mixed well with the powdered broth, but it didn't give off the steam that could have clouded the glass and windows. She takes her small chopsticks- wooden ones that she's been using for months- and dips it into the ramen, pulling out a single strand of ramen and slowly bringing it to her mouth. She shifts awkwardly, uncomfortable under Sasuke's unrelenting gaze.

They remain quiet. The sun has moved to hang over their head but the clouds block away the sunshine. The sky is murky, and a thin drizzle falls. She is completely done her ramen when he speaks again. "Sakura." His voice has softened slightly. She looks in his direction. She sees him grind his teeth together in pain. A small patch on his neck has a purplish tint to it and is swollen.

"My neck hurts."

She doesn't reply, because she already knows that he knows what it is, she just assumes he wants confirmation that it is something else. That it wasn't what they were all thinking it was, that he wasn't going to die.

And she thinks for a second, and realizes that he is going to die, and how completely and utterly different this was from the fairy tale ending she wanted. The man who was suppose to love her, the man who was suppose to live forever, is sitting in front of her, his eyes a smokey gray with no passion and his hands frail, instead of being the tall brave man who'd kiss her in the rain and tell her he loved her, he sat with little to no expression but pain on his face.

She laughs at the difference, and he is visibly angered.

The silence is back again, their friend. Her only company for the three years that he was gone.

"What happened to the Sakura I knew?" Sasuke asks slightly angry, her head resting in her hands while she sits on the floor. She lifts her head,"We barely knew each other." She states in a half joking voice before looking down at her feet and standing up.

"Isolation. The pain of being alone happened." She replies, her memories came flooding back and she shuts her eyes as if in pain. "I lost everything to the apocalypse, my family, my friends, my home. So after being alone for three months and coming across you I thought that for the first time in three months I would have a friend. I thought that I would have a person to support me- A person who would show me that they cared. If I knew that you'd leave me behind without a second thought, that you'd let isolation reclaim me, I would have never saved you. Because I'd much rather always be alone then to think I'm going to be saved." She pauses, "Sasuke, you had a teacher, you had a goal. Me on the other hand- I became alone. I didn't know why I was surviving, I didn't know why I didn't just die."

She whispers the last part quietly, her composed attitude from before was extinguished by her own words and realization.

They remain in their own moment, the minute seems to drag on forever as if it were a captured screen. "And now, you're going to die on me too." She doesn't let the tears that brimmed in her eyes fall, because she tells herself she will be strong. Then he speaks.

"Sakura, I've known how being alone feels. I've been drowning in the quiet for a long time now." He whispers, and she thinks that he sounds like he's wise beyond his years yet still in the shape of a vulnerable child. The long strands of raven hair drape over his forehead casting a shadow which covered his eyes. He clutches the hand bars tighter, so much so that the metal digs into his palms but he doesn't show any sign that he cares.

"When I was younger, Sakura, I was always alone. No one cared for me because my brother was always the better one. They'd see me as 'the younger one' or 'the prodigy's brother'. At that time, all I wanted was to have a friend. Then, my brother destroyed everything. He killed my family, stabbed them and left them to die.

That was when I learned to hate. I sat in the dark, aiming to become stronger one day and kill my brother, avenge my brother. And after that incident, everyone that looked at me looked at me with pity and sadness. And because I was the only Uchiha left, I was now known as 'the survivor' or 'the last Uchiha'.

I was alone for the first seven years of my life, because no one ever cared.

Then my best friend walked into my life, and I had someone who did. I was at the library, my head rested on my weaved hands. He caught my attention while I read through my book, and I stared at him for a long while.

He sat on a bench in the rain with a cup of instant ramen. He was smiling, and it lit up the space around him. I was absolutely perplexed, this kid, this child, how was he so happy while sitting with nothing more but a sweater and a cup of ramen in the rain. He was confusing me so much that I approached him, and the first thing he did was offer me some ramen with a giant dorky grin. This kid was called Naruto.

Naruto was one hell of a person. The one thing that I learnt about Naruto that stood out the most was his uncanny ability to make friends. He, he was the light in a dim room, contradicting and conflicting with my shade. He attracted everyone, and even when they don't like him at first, they soon learned to love his bright and cheery attitude." He paused, his hands tightened around the metal.

"When the zombie apocalypse hit us, I thought we could make it through this together, I thought we could do this and survive together. We helped each other and we supplied each other. If it weren't for the reminder that came in silence and the sickening stench of blood, we probably could have forgotten of the zombies.

Then the ambush came, and the zombies overwhelmed us. Our peaceful world had shattered, as the rotting scum ambushed us. I had managed to climb up a pole but Naruto was too late. I watched- I freaking watched- my very own brother hug the pole with pleading eyes while being ripped to shreds and screaming.

I had lost my only family right there, killed by the zombies. It was when I realized that I was truly alone." His eyes are hallow as he recalls the memories, and Sakura has her hands covering her mouth.

Slowly, she slide her hand over his bicep and onto his shoulder and gave him a soft pat. "Oh Sasuke, I'm sorry."

He nods, "I don't need your sympathy, I've faced more tragedy and sympathy in my days than anyone else has in a lifetime." If it wasn't for the current situation, she would've thought him as cocky. He looks up at her and she flinches. "Sakura," He pulls out a gun from a strap around his waist. "Please, do me and yourself a favour, and shoot me." He states calmly.

She pales at his request, and stifles the urge to scream the words 'no'. "Sasuke, I can't." She starts, avoiding eye contact. "I-" Then she sees it.

The lone tear that is in his left eye, refusing to fall but it's there. Hiding and cowering, and she instantly melts. The eye was a dark black, and instead of what she saw every time from before, the hate, the care, the emptiness, she sees desperation. And hope.

His eyes are filled with hope.

And so she decides to take his gun.

Each step towards him is painful, but she does it because she loves him.

Even though she knows her love is unrequited.

Even though this man is stubborn, annoying, and unappreciative of everything she does.

She reaches for the gun, and she grips it tightly. This time she can not hold in the tears and they spill out.

* * *

Sakura holds the gun shaking, aiming for his head. All he does is give a slight smile to reassure her as he sits down onto the floor, not resisting. The tears that trailed from her eyes and down her rosy cheeks tells him that she'll survive. As she clutches the gun tighter and her finger squeezes the trigger, he realizes- Sakura Haruno is no longer the little girl whom he left behind.

The loud gunshot pierced the air and shatters the eerie silence. The heavy dismal gray sky begins to weep, and the sudden silence returns to engulf the town as she becomes alone again.

* * *

Welp. I tried and failed, but we needed entries, so here's mine ;u;

This is probably the best I can try at development in 4k words ;u;


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